The Lofty Oak

The Royal Oak and its sen­sa­tional steel ar­mour rev­o­lu­tionised the watch in­dus­try when it was launched in 1972. Some 44 years later, Audemars Piguet re­in­forces the brand’s stature in the world of haute hor­logerie by of­fer­ing the Royal Oak per­pet­ual cal­en­dar in 18k yel­low gold. Aes­thet­i­cally, all the sig­na­ture Royal Oak trade­marks have been re­tained. The watch is pow­ered by the new self-wind­ing cal­i­bre 5134, an adap­ta­tion of the cal­i­bre 2120 that has been en­larged to ac­com­mo­date the 41-mm case di­men­sions. This watch is partly in­spired by the first Royal Oak Per­pet­ual Cal­en­dar (ref­er­ence 5554, later re­named 25554) de­signed by Jac­que­line Dimier in 1984. Of the 279 pieces in that orig­i­nal launch, 229 were sump­tu­ously cased in yel­low gold.